Puzzling opposition to Palestinian bid for UN membership

The Israel-Palestine conflict often generates frustrating, puzzling, and even bizarre things. The latest is the opposition to Palestinian bid for UN membership by the US and many European countries. It has started intensive diplomatic efforts of these countries that are rarely seen.

It is common sense that the closer to being equal the two negotiating counterparts are, the higher chance of success. Since Israel has been a UN member since 1949, it is intuitive to think that Palestinian’s UN membership would help accelerate the peace negotiation between Israel and Palestine.  In addition, the two-state solution was proposed by President Bush almost 10 years ago, and has been embraced by most nations. Palestinian’s UN membership would be in line with the two-state solution.

My puzzlement drove me to listen to two American Mideast experts explaining the reasons for the opposition on PBS. It seems there are two reasons according to them:

1. Palestinian’s unilateral action would drive Israel away from the negotiation table.
2. Palestinian’s UN membership would turn the conflict from a political problem into a legal problem because it would allow Palestinians to resort to International Criminal Court (ICC) to handle some matters.

Instead of solving my puzzle, the explanations puzzle me even more.  I always thought Europe and the US are the strongest supporters of ICC because it is a fair and just organization.  ICC’s latest action of charging Qaddafi family members is widely supported. Why is ICC not trusted when it comes to the Israel-Palestine conflict? The argument regarding unilateral action is even more puzzling. If Israel and Palestine always took bilateral actions, and neither took any unilateral actions, then the peace would be realized, the conflict would end. Have Europe and the US ever conducted such intensive diplomatic effort when Israel took unilateral actions?